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Lot 25*
Syed Haider Raza (Indian, 1922-2016)Germination
Withdrawn
Amended
25 October 2021, 10:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£100,000 - £150,000
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Syed Haider Raza (Indian, 1922-2016)
Germination
signed and dated '98 lower centre, signed and dated 1998 verso with title
acrylic on canvas
120 x 120cm (47 1/4 x 47 1/4in).
signed and dated '98 lower centre, signed and dated 1998 verso with title
acrylic on canvas
120 x 120cm (47 1/4 x 47 1/4in).
Footnotes
Provenance
Private French Collection: acquired directly from the artist.
Private Dubai Collection: acquired by the vendor from Auctionata in 2013.
Raza was a founding member of the Progressive Artists Group formed in Bombay, alongside M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza, K.H. Ara and H.A. Gade, in 1947. They advocated the rejection of the style pioneered by the Bengal school of Art, which married folk styles and Hindu imagery and instead focussed on synthesizing the influences from Indian art history along with the various styles that emerged in North America and Europe during the first half of the 20th Century that included Cubism, Expressionism and Post-Impressionism.
By the 1970s Raza grew increasingly restless with his work and wanted to give it a new direction. It was during this period that he was captivated by the Tantric traditions, philosophy, and art of his homeland. The confluence of these influences led to the invention of the bindu or beej in his work which would be a key motif that would be repeated in the works he created thereafter. Beej, which means 'seed,' symbolises the bearer of life or the source of space, time and consciousness in Indian philosophy. This black dot or beej, became the epicentre of the canvas and gave birth to other geometric forms such as horizontal and vertical lines, squares and downward and upward triangles that signified the complementary forces of male (purush) and female (prakriti) energy for instance. His fascination with spirituality and nature were reflected through his symbolic shapes as well as the use of colour.
Raza stated: "There was a state of emptiness. I stopped painting for a while. I tried to look within instead of looking around. It was a complex and very difficult period when everything seemed dark and empty. But I continued. I followed my states, my intuitions. And from this blank space emerged a black point. The black point grew and grew and became a black circle. I stared. I found there was a horizontal line hardly perceptible and yes, there was a vertical line too. A certain electric charge came which engendered energy. The condition of the subway became clearer and slowly colours started appearing. White then yellow, blue and red. It was obvious that along with the initial black, this would form the colour spectrum" (G. Sen, Bindu: Space and Time in Raza's Vision 1997, p. 107)
The present lot dating from 1998 incorporates all the geometric and aesthetic elements that defined his marked shift from expressionistic landscape to becoming a master of geometric abstraction. Black symbolises the black hole where everything ends and from where everything emerges.
"Forms emerge from darkness. Their presence is perceptible from obscurity. They become relevant if their energy is orientated, through vision, into form orchestration. For these certain prerequisites are indispensable." (G. Sen, Bindu: Space and Time in Raza's Vision, 1997, p. 107)
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This lot has been withdrawn.